A couple of weeks back I set on a new experience with my new friends in a new country and now when I am back in front of my laptop I can just amaze at the fact that we really have been able to finish our extraordinary trip with no problems at all. This article is just a memoir of my road trip from Madison, Wisconsin to Los Angeles/Highway 1, California and back.
The plan was simple, 6 enthusiastic friends, 1 powerful car that we rented from Hertz, 5000+ miles to cover and 2 major cities as destination. We set our wheels rolling, on the chilly winter morning of December 21 with an aim to drive through a major part of the road that day. We had our two drivers buckled up with me in the navigator position (#Sad - The car rental agency doesn't allow drivers below the age of 24 to drive). As our car cruised at a speed of 70mph the darkness made way to dawn and a wide expanse of Wisconsin farms emerged in front of us. The weather was on our side that day as we made way through two state borders and a line of Omaha buildings emerged around the silhouette. By this time, the countryside had already won over our sleepy eyes. The amazing farm machinery, large windmills, cattle grazing all around and a rustic feel of the barren trees made us realize that we were getting away from the racing time and those laptop screens we have been so intently looking at throughout the semester. Making occasional stops at gas stations and playing all sorts of games in the car, we befriended the road quite easily. As it became clear that we will be able to make our ambitious target of reaching Colorado Springs on the first day, I called Expedia to make a reservation for a hotel room. Well, that was super fun because the guy on the other end was not able to follow my simple instructions to book a room for six in Hotel Marriott. After about 20 minutes when all of us had extracted enough fun out of that conversation I calmed the guy down who had become real nervous by then and told him to leave the reservation. As we had got our LTE signals, we made the booking online.
After a 17-hr long drive on the first day when we reached the amazing hotel, we took a huge sigh of relief. We had not expected such an amazing place for such a cheap rate and though we were all tired from the drive, we kept on talking till 1 in the night. The next morning, after my first-ever western breakfast complete with waffles and orange juice, when I went outside, the scene took my breath away. It had snowed after we pulled in the driveway of the hotel last night and the snow covered peaks of really close by hills made it look heavenly and rightly so, because the place we visited in Colorado Springs was called the Garden of the Gods. That day we took a slight detour from our originally decided path and the dusty roads of Colorado led us to the 'Royal Gorge Bridge'. It is an amazing piece of architecture but what made it memorable for me was the Sky Coaster ride that I did there with a couple of my friends where we swung like a pendulum over the 300m deep gorge. An adrenaline rush shot through my head as I saw the large hilly terrain of Colorado from high up in the air. After the thrilling experience, we hit US Highway 50 which is a really beautiful stretch of road and you can actually imagine yourself in a movie from there. That beauty showed its true colors when we met with heavy snow and had to turn back from one point to look for another route. At one point, we stopped right in the middle of a junction and started contemplating on which way to go. A moment of genius struck me and I asked the two girls for some lady luck and to choose between the two routes. It was already pretty late at night and we were applying all sorts of calculations to make the decision but the girls were oblivious to all that contemplation and simply took a guess at one of the routes. Guess what! It turned out to be one of the best decisions as we reached our pre-decided destination and it made our subsequent days a little more easier for drive. To all those, who plan on hitting the roads in Colorado & Wyoming during winters, planning will not help. In the midst of all this we did see a herd of stags pass infront of us on the road and some deers along the route.
All is well that ends well and that day ended with us comfortably snuggled in a nice hotel room with everyone ready to visit Grand Canyon the next day. The following day blessed us with sunshine and a beautiful landscape of the Grand Canyon. The myriad shades of red that one sees in Grand Canyon is uncomparable and the view of the tortuous Colorado River making way through it at sunset will remain embedded in my memory forever. I am sure that the true spirit of the place can only be experienced through hiking but I am happy that the iconic place had so much to offer in the short span of a day we spent there. We drove to Flagstaff via the Historic route 66 (Its the same route that has been shown in the animated movie "Cars") to reach our hotel. The next day we were supposed to reach the brightest city on Earth. Through the curvy paths we reached Vegas via Hoover Dam which reminded us of the action scene in Transformers. On reaching Vegas, I was simply awestruck by sheer lighting of those casinos/hotels. You just wish that you keep looking at the colour that comes out of that city at night. People say that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", but maybe that sort of Vegas getaway is planned for some other time for me. This time, I simply enjoyed the place and the best part was Caesar's Palace. The indoor city is very beautifully created with the sky rooftop just completing the aura. Oh yeah! We did catch a glimpse of Britney Spears performing in one of the shows at that time. I only have limited details for the two nights we spent there but I guess that is obvious ;)
We reached the city of Hollywood on the night of December 26 and I saw an Ocean for the first time. The Pacific greeted us with chilly winds at the Santa Monica Pier and the beautiful song of a singer at the pier stopped me in my tracks. It was a time when I realized how far I have come and it made me proud of myself. A cherry on top of this cake was, us winning a huge soft toy in the game of "Toss a Ring". The problem of stuffing that huge piece into the car, came later :P. At first sight, Los Angeles looked like a really Indian city not because I came across a lot of Indians infact I didnt see any Indians there. It was just the way, the shops and houses were lined up. The day quickly went by while we were clicking pics with the famous names on Hollywood Boulevard, driving through Beverly Hills, enjoying the sunset at Venice Beach and observing a lot of things at Griffith Observatory. We also saw a guy proposing his girl at the Observatory. I always thought that it was the stuff for movies but apparently people do like a little bit of Hollywood in their lives.
Our return journey started from LA and that day we were traveling through the most scenic driving routes in the world. US Highway 1 cannot be expressed in mere words especially not by a novice blogger like me. I would just ask you to go there and experience it for yourself. Enroute we also came across wild zebras and seals who were resting along the shore lines. Oops! I forgot about an amazing part where we took an exit for gas station and ended up having a countryside breakfast near Los Alamos. With a bright sun, serene setting of a small town and a luscious serving of Croissants, Bagels & Grilled Sandwich, a meal cannot be any better. Getting back to the the drive, after highway 1 ended it was slightly tedious as all of us were overwhelmed with the beauty of the place and dreams came naturally to everyone. Anyways, we reached our destination that day and another major stop waited for us the next day. We visited Lake Tahoe in Nevada the next day. The confluence of snow covered mountains, green coniferous trees and clear blue water was exquisite. We simply didn't want to leave that place because no more destinations awaited us. We took our time to capture the landscape in our memory. Following this, a long drive through the inhuman temperatures of -19F with no set destination was a little difficult. We ended up on the border of Utah and Nevada and stayed in the small town of Wendover that day.
We were lagging behind our schedule for the return journey and the weather was no help either. But our friends who were driving braved all odds and we kept moving the next two days. On December 30, we stayed in Gothenburg, Nebraska. This was our last stay and we reached home for New Year's Eve which we celebrated with some delicious Indian food. I was thinking that the return journey will be really boring but all of us kept talking throughout the way. Bonding with each other and remembering different landmarks we saw in our onward journey made the route really easy. Also, trying different eatery chains made it even more fun with mouthwaterng food. In last 10 days we had covered a major part of the US seeing all sorts of terrains and experiencing temperatures ranging from -20F to 70F. Simply put, it was an all encompassing trip.
Now, onto some pointers we learnt from this trip:
1. Plan but give some leeway for changes. eg. You cannot plan the weather.
2. Expedia is not the best source of bookings. Just a couple of experiences during this time.
3. Be enthusiastic and keep a group large enough to have fun but small enough to gel up easily.
4. Don't force improvising in the plan, on such long trips you will do it eventually
5. The travel is a major part but so is the destination. We always hear it the other way round but for such cases you might end up covering just a lot of ground and see no particular attraction.
6. Keep a full size hard-copy map handy.
Traveling is fun, just give it a try and dont be afraid of planning big!!
For interested readers, here is a basic overview of our drive. There were definitely hundreds of miles of detour that we took but this covers the gist
